Monday, December 29, 2008

[...] And then, several weeks ago, dog-napping terror hit the Upper West Side. E-mails began circulating (one subject line: "DOGNAPPING attempts in NYC with RAZOR and RANSOM -- get dogs ON LEASHES -- happening on West Side"), and flyers were posted at dog runs and veterinary offices and pet stores ("COMMUNITY ALERT: DOGNAPPING attempts on the West Side"). Dog owners, particularly women with small dogs -- said to be the prime target -- began to panic. [...]

Editor’s Note: In the latest indication of the deepening economic crisis in New York, a new phenomenon is on the rise: dognapping. The crime is entering the ranks of urban legend: Everyone knows someone who knows someone whose dog has been abducted and who had to pay ransom. [...]

MYTHS DISABLED: So Mr Wheawall resents disabled people having the use of Motorbility vehicles. Mr Wheawall, I am not disabled and nor do I have a 'free' car. However, as you seem so envious of what you believe others to have, I would like to inform you that disabled people are not given a new Range Rover for £5,000. If they have the money to hand over £5,000 for the use of a car for three years, they are able to use one. After three years, they hand the car back. They do not have a refund of the £5,000.

I have heard that some people believe that disabled people are also given free petrol for their cars. That is another urban myth.

NEW YORK (AP) - The publisher of a disputed Holocaust memoir has canceled the book, adding the name Herman Rosenblat to an increasingly long line of literary fakers and bringing down with a crash his story - embraced by Oprah Winfrey among others - of meeting his future wife at a Nazi concentration camp. [...]

Friday, December 26, 2008

The way international intrigue was used to depose the Right Honourable H.H. Asquith when he was Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1916 was explained to me by a man who was extremely well informed. I met him while serving as King’s Messenger in 1917. We were in my room, in a hotel when, during the course of conversation, I mentioned that I strongly suspected that a comparatively small group of extremely wealthy men used the power their wealth could buy to influence national and international affairs, to further their own secret plans and ambitions.

My companion replied: “If you talk about such things it is unlikely that you will live long enough to realize how right you are.” He then told me how Mr. Asquith had been deposed in December 1916, and Mr. David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, and The Rt. Hon. Arthur James Balfour were placed in power in England.

The story he told me had a remarkable similarity to the plot used by the Secret Powers who directed the campaign of L’Infamie immediately prior to the outbreak of the French revolution in 1789. It will be recalled a letter was used to lure Cardinal Prince de Rohan to the Palais Royal where he was involved with a prostitute disguised as Marie Antoinette. The alleged modern method is as follows:

Shortly after the outbreak of the war in August 1914 a small group of wealthy men authorized an agent to turn an old, but very spacious mansion, into a fabulous private club. Those who made it possible to finance such a costly undertaking insisted that their identity remain secret. They explained that they simply wished to show their deep appreciation to officers in the Armed Forces who were risking their lives for King and Country.

The club provided every kind of luxury, entertainment, and facilities for pleasure. The use of the club was usually restricted to commissioned officers on leave in London from active service. A new member had to be introduced by a brother officer. My companion referred to it as the “Glass Club”.[1]

Upon arrival, officer guests were interviewed by an official. If he was satisfied with their credentials they were told how the club functioned. The officer applying for admission was asked to give his word of honour that he would not mention the names of any persons he met during his stay at the club, or reveal their identity after he left the club. Having given this solemn promise, it was explained to the guest that he would meet a number of women well known in the best of London’s society. They all wore masks. The officer was asked not to try to identify any of the ladies. He was sworn to keep their secret should he happen to identify any of them accidentally.

With the preliminaries over, the officer was shown to his private room. It was furnished in a most luxuriant manner. The furnishings included a huge double bed, dressing table, wardrobe, cabinet with wines and liqueurs, a smoking humidor, and private toilet and bath. The new guest was invited to make himself at home. He was informed that he would receive a lady visitor. She would wear a brooch of costume jewelry with the number of his room. If, after getting acquainted, he wished to take her down to dinner that was his privilege.

The reception room, where guests and their hostesses mingled over cocktails before dinner, was like that of a King’s palace. The dining room was large enough to accommodate fifty couples. The ballroom was such that many people dream about but few seldom see. Costly decorations were set off by luxurious drapes, subdued lighting, beautiful women gorgeously dressed, soft dreamy music, the smell of rare perfumes, made the place an Arab’s dream of heaven. The whole atmosphere of the club was such that the officers home on leave relaxed at first and then set out to have a real Roman Holiday. There was nothing gross or vulgar about the “Glass Club”. Everything about the place was beautiful, delicate, soft, and pliant ... the exact opposite of the horrors, the violence, the brutality, of a modern war. Between dance numbers entertainers gave performances which brought out the feelings of joy, fun and laughter. As the evening progressed, a long buffet was literally loaded with luscious dishes of fish and game. A bar provided every kind of drink from champagne to straight whisky. Between midnight and one a.m. five beautiful girls performed the Dance of the Seven Veils. The dance depicted a scene in a Sultan’s Harem. The girls started the dance fully clothed, (even to the veil they wore to conceal the facial features) but, when the dance ended the girls were entirely naked. They danced the final act in their lithe-nakedness, waving the flimsy veil around and about them in a manner which extenuated, rather than concealed, their physical charms. Couples, when tired of entertainment, dancing, and other people’s company, retired to their private rooms.

Next day they could enjoy indoor swimming, tennis, badminton, billiards, or, there was the card room which was a miniature Monte Carlo. About November 1916 a very high personage was lured into visiting the Club when he received a note saying that he would obtain information of the greatest importance to the British Government. He drove to the Club in his private car. He instructed his chauffeur to wait for him. After being admitted, he was taken to one of the luxuriously furnished bed-sitting rooms. A lady joined him. When she saw him she nearly fainted. It was his own wife. She was much younger than her husband. She had been acting as hostess to lonely officers on leave for a considerable time. It was a most embarrassing situation.

The wife knew nothing of the plot. She had no secret information to give. She was convinced that both she and her husband were philandering. She thought it was only this unfortunate chance meeting which had brought them face to face. There was a scene. The husband was informed regarding the part hostesses played at the Club. But his lips were sealed as if in death. He was a member of the Government. He couldn’t afford to figure in a scandal.

1. An exact duplicate of this club was organized just outside Montreal during World War Two.

Abu Dhabi police sought to play down fears among consumers on Monday that a killer perfume was on the loose after a rumor was spread by text message to mobile phones.

The text messages claimed that in four days 18 people had died after using the unnamed perfume and that another 35 had been admitted to intensive care in hospitals in Abu Dhabi. The text messages also urged the receivers to spread send warnings to the people they know as quickly as possible to rescue as much people as possible. [...]

She had a hearing aid that was connected to the booth where Ken Hughes sat and smoked. It looked like a telephone booth with glass windows, and it was wired up to her earphone. Waiting for the shot, Ken would smoke, and this booth would get fogged up until you could barely see him. In the middle of my line he would say her line so that she could say it when I finished. But it was a high-frequency radio connection, and it picked up a lot of other stuff. One day during a scene I heard her say "605 Fountain" -- the hearing aid was picking up police calls, and she blurted this out -- "605 Fountain, proceed with caution!" or whatever the fuck it was. Another time she picked up some helicopter signals and started to report traffic conditions on the Hollywood Freeway.

As I said, Mae didn't know her lines, so the director sat in a closed booth just outside the scene and read her lines into a microphone that transmitted his voice over a shortwave radio signal. Mae had an earpiece that would broadcast the director's voice into her ear, and she simply repeated the lines as she heard them. The director would smoke while he was in there reading her lines to her, until the booth would become so full of smoke you couldn't see him anymore. When he coughed, so did she. I would stand there, watching this, thinking, This is crazy.

One time I was doing a scene with Mae, and we had the setup with the booth and the microphone going. The director said, "Action," and I gave my line, and Mae replied, "Altercation on Melrose and Sunset. Approach with caution."

The director yelled, "Cut!" Everyone looked at each other; those words weren't in the script. The director asked her what she was talking about, and she said something like, "Units are en route." Then we realized that Mae's earpiece had been intercepting signals from a police shortwave radio.

George Hamilton and William Stadiem, Don't Mind If I Do (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2008), p. 255.

When I met Mae for our first scene, I thought in was in Madame Tussaud's on acid. She was all of four feet tall, with platform shoes a foot high and hair a foot and a half. Here was our dialogue.

Me: "Hi baby, long time no grab."

Mae: "Vance, Vance, I thought you were dead. I was in mourning for three weeks. When I played on the piano, I only played on the black keys...a little to the left...What?...Cut. Cut...a little to the left..."

It sounded somehow as if it was coming out of Mae's hair. I turned in shell shock to my dresser, who said, "She's wired up," and pointed to the director. Then I realized that it was coming out of her hair. Mae was wearing an earpiece wherein her lines were being fed to her, and she just repeated them -- and anything else the director said. We went back to work.

[Actor Donald O'Connor] was a hilarious guy, and we got along great. He used to love to use his film projector to secretly project porno films onto his next-door neighbor's garage door. A car would drive by at night, and you'd hear the tires squeal as the driver slammed on the brakes. Then Donald would shut the film off.

James Bacon, Hollywood Is a Four Letter Town (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1976), pp. 23-4.

[One night comic Red Skelton] called me up to the house, which was high atop a hill in Bel-Air, and we went up to his bedroom. Red showed me a projection machine with a powerful telephoto lens and said, "Look down there on Sunset Boulevard. See that house on the curve with the white garage door? You see it?"

It could be seen, all right, but I was not prepared for what use Skelton would make of it. He took out a stag reel. I still remember the title -- The Little Sister. It was one of those filthy reels where the wife's gorgeous little sister comes to visit. The wife leaves the sister with the husband to get better acquainted.

Well, in a matter of seconds, they are well acquainted indeed -- both nude in bed and doing all the oral sex acts people do in stag reels.

Red had focused this reel on the white garage door on Sunset Boulevard. You could hear the brakes screeching all the way up the hill. Can you imagine driving down a busy street and seeing a girl going down on a guy on a garage door?

Showing this reel became a popular pastime of Red's -- until the cops traced the light beams. Red got off with a warning, but the curve forever after has been called Dead Man's Curve.

DEAR ABBY: I have a "pennies from heaven" story you might appreciate. [...]

And when I walked to the dresser to unpack, two quarters were sitting on top. It was then that my husband and I agreed that Darrel had stopped to say goodbye on his way to heaven. -- QUARTERS FROM HEAVEN

A malicious and false email announcing that a substance in the peanut-based snack "Bamba" caused a recent spate of mysterious infant deaths has caused the stocks of the product's manufacturer Osem to plummet. [...]

Rumors suggest Beavers gear may have been placed under Oregon’s new baseball field

By Brooks HatchGazette-Times reporter

Oregon State and Oregon won’t revive their long-dormant baseball rivalry until March 27.

But the first beanball in the revived horsehide Civil War may have already been thrown. Rumors have been rampant the past month or so that several Beaver Believers secretly buried an OSU jersey or a commemorative Back-to-Back National Championships T-shirt in the ground underneath the PK Park playing surface. [...]

HE HAS gone from being a revered pop idol to one of Britain's most reviled sex offenders, writes Mark Horne. But Gary Glitter caused widespread alarm in a small corner of rural Scotland without a shred of evidence he had even been there.

A string of 'sightings' of the convicted paedophile along the Moray coastline have been reported recently. So strong were the rumours that officials at the alternative-lifestyle Findhorn Foundation searched their premises to find him. [...]

I read the article on the tunnel between the Ipoh Town Hall and the High Court with interests and as an Ipohite I wish to draw the attention of Mr. Kulasegaran (MP Ipoh Barat) to look into another possible one linking Ipoh Convent and SMI Ipoh [St. Michael's Institution, a boys' school -- bc]. This rumour has been going on for a long time but the actual existence is still a mystery to former SMI and Convent students! [...]

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The following story, which was published in one of the periodical journals some time since, is too interesting to be omitted.

"An old chiffonnier (or rag-picker) died in Paris, in a state of the most abject poverty.

"His only relation was a niece, who lived as servant with a green-grocer. This girl always assisted her uncle as far as her slender means would permit. When she learnt of his death, which took place suddenly, she was upon the point of marriage with a journeyman baker, to whom she had been long attached. The nuptial day was fixed, but Suzette had not yet bought her wedding clothes. She hastened to tell her lover that their marriage must be deferred, as she wanted the price of her bridal finery to lay her uncle decently in the grave. Her mistress ridiculed the idea, and exhorted her to leave the old man to be buried by charity. Suzette refused. The consequence was a quarrel, in which the young woman lost at once her place and her lover, who sided with her mistress. She hastened to the miserable garret where her uncle had expired, and by the sacrifice not only of her wedding attire, but of nearly all the rest of her slender wardrobe, she had the old man decently interred. Her pious task fulfilled, she sat alone in her uncle's room, weeping bitterly, when the master of her faithless lover, a young, good-looking man, entered. 'So, my good Suzette, I find you nave lost your place!' cried he; 'I am come to offer you one for life — will you marry me?' 'I, sir ? — you are joking.' 'No, faith, I want a wife, and I am sure I can't find a better.' 'But everybody will laugh at you for marrying a poor girl like me.' 'O! if that is your only objection, we shall soon get over it: come, come along; my mother is prepared to receive you.' Suzette hesitated no longer; but she wished to take with her a memorial of her deceased uncle: it was a cat that he had had for many years. The old man was so fond of the animal that he was determined even her death should not separate them for he had had her stuffed and placed upon the tester of his bed. As Suzette took puss down, she uttered an exclamation of surprise at finding her so heavy. The lover hastened to open the animal, when out fell a shower of gold. There were a thousand louis concealed in the body of the cat; and this sum, which the old miser had starved himself to amass, became the just reward of the worthy girl and her disinterested lover."

A respected German scientific magazine has been embarrassed to discover it printed a Chinese-language advertisement for "jade-like girls" and "coquettish and enchanting housewives" across its front cover.

By Richard Spencer in Beijing

The striking white-on-red text was intended to show off the Chinese focus of the official journal of the Max Planck Institute. [...]

A respected research institute wanted Chinese classical texts to adorn its journal, something beautiful and elegant, to illustrate a special report on China. Instead, it got a racy flyer extolling the lusty details of stripping housewives in a brothel. [...]

[Titizian recounts rumors about imminent earthquakes and banana exports to the Bahamas; that onboard gunfire caused the 2006 crash of Armavia Flight 967; and, as related below, that a bride was killed by a scorpion in the Sourp Krikor Lusavorich cathedral in 2001.]

I recall the day my young daughter came home from school in a fluster and said she had heard the most horrific tale. A young bride standing at the altar with her groom, just married, had collapsed on the cold marble floor of the church and died. The rumor was that a scorpion, hidden among the many layers of tulle and veil had bit the young woman, killing her instantly. I was horrified but questioned the truth of the story; yet my daughter's eyes were full of so much conviction that I told her it was indeed a tragedy. That week the rumor spread like wildfire and everyone was talking about it. Of course, it never happened. The reason for starting that rumor I'll leave to the imagination, but I suspect after that most brides checked to make sure there were no hiding scorpions in their wedding dresses.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

ANAHEIM -- Disneyland management has fired the four actors who played pirate Jack Sparrow because officials were worried about young female park-goers flashing the swashbuckling actors late at night, according to one former cast member.

"They lost control when they saw Jack Sparrow," said former pirate Brandon Pinto, who left the role after a dispute with management a year ago. "This is a sexy, rock-star pirate." [...]

[...] Disneyland officials confirmed that the pirate was indeed fired (due to declining relevance and diminishing visitor requests), but flatly denied published reports that the dismissal had anything to do with female fans flashing their breasts at the swashbuckling actors who portray Jack Sparrow at the Anaheim theme park.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

George Hamilton and William Stadiem, Don't Mind If I Do (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2008), pp. 190-91.

[Hamilton was in Spain for the shooting of L'Homme de Marrakech (1965).]

All the action in Madrid seemed to take place in bordellos. At another house of mirth I got into a scrape on behalf of the actor John Ireland[.] [...] Times had gotten tough in Hollywood for John, so he too was in Europe trading on his noir reputation. John took me to a brothel[.] [...] Because of my Spanish skills, John asked me to translate to his obscure object of desire what his specific desire was. I blush to tell you, so I won't, but it had something to do with a rare set of pearls John had bought for his wife, Daphne, in Majorca.

The next morning, John called me in a panic. He had left the pearls at the brothel, Daphne was flying in imminently from London, so could I go and retrieve them for him? Let me tell you that there is no place sadder than a Spanish brothel in the dead of morning. Bodies were everywhere; it looked more like Gettysburg than an orgy. There was no trace of Daphne's pearls. Surely the girl had absconded with them. But as I played my Inspector Clouseau act, I discovered that the girl in question was the consort of the owner. The owner called her to task. She was still drunk, but then she woke up. Of course the pearls weren't in plain sight. They were still in the unmentionable orifice where John kinkily had placed them. I got them back and left a huge tip. I arrived back at the hotel with the pearls just as Daphne was arriving. Daphne was never the wiser, but for John and me, "Daphne's pearls" became a running joke that had us laughing for years.

Friday, December 5, 2008

GRADUALISM is that system of achieving social or political changes by almost imperceptible steps or degrees. Imperceptible...that's the key...so slight and gradual that the mind or senses do not see any real change!

Put a frog in a pot of hot water and he will quickly jump out.

But place him in a pot of cold water and gradually heat it and he will bask in its warmth with a hypnotized tranquility until the water reaches a boiling point and it is too late!

That's exactly the technique Satan is using on us today as we approach the soon coming Rapture.

RANDY men who go after anything in skirt seemed to have reduced their nefarious activities going by the rumour of sudden disappearance of the manhood of some men after marathon sexual acts with suspected prostitutes in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. [...]

FALSE rumours that City of Greater Geelong had ordered the song White Christmas to be dropped from the Denis Walter Carols by the Bay due to racial connotations have been laughed off by organisers. [...]

Thursday, December 4, 2008

[...] The idea that blood type defines our personality, temperament and ability to mingle is routinely dismissed as nonsense, but that has not stopped four books on the subject from occupying Japan's top 10 bestseller list for the past year. [...]

BUNA, Texas (AP) - The one that didn't get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man. The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn. [...]

A Jersey City man who allegedly made mischief on the Internet on Mischief Night by spreading false reports of gang violence in Jersey City and Bayonne was arrested yesterday.

Officials subpoenaed information from Comcast and the Web site JCList.com, where the postings appeared, leading to the arrest of Andrew T. Lazaro, 19, of Bentley Avenue, on a count of causing false public alarm, Jersey City Police Chief Tom Comey said in a press release last night.

The sick warnings posted on JCList on Oct. 30 under the moniker "Tom" claimed that several schoolgirls and women in Jersey City and Bayonne were shot as part of a gang initiation, and caused a flood of 911 calls, officials said. [...]

AN email which has aroused outrage across St Albans against global coffee company Starbucks has been refuted by the chain.

Many town, district and county councillors across St Albans were shocked today to receive an email alleging the company had refused to send its coffee abroad to army camps because it did not support military action in Iraq, or the soldiers fighting there.

But the chain insists the email, sent out by an American Marine sergeant, has been circulating since 2004 and is totally untrue. [...]

Monday, November 24, 2008

SHANGHAI Sperm Bank has been forced to issue a statement on its Website to clarify its procedures, after explicit photos circulated on the Internet, claiming to show female nurses helping men to "donate" at the sperm bank.

Officials from Renji Hospital, where the sperm bank is located, said yesterday they had received several inquiries about their practices after the hoax photos appeared online. They said the hospital's sperm-collecting procedure is in line with professional regulations and that the misleading pictures could tarnish the reputation of the hospital and the sperm bank. [...]

A RADIO station has denied presenter Graham Mack's discussion with a former cannibal are part of a bold publicity stunt.

Listeners to TFM were left in shock after a caller admitted live on air that she was once an unwitting cannibal. [...]

"It was when I was a child when I lived in Africa. We always went to the same butcher and then suddenly ... the meat started to get so much better. It was only when we moved back to England ... that we realised that the butcher had been arrested because he farmed little black girls." [...]

[...] Someone sent out an e-mail advising business owners that Mr. [Dan] Remely had resigned himself to having to lay off employees because of tax increases expected when Barack Obama becomes president.

According to the letter, he walked through his company's parking lot and found which cars had bumper stickers supporting Mr. Obama for president. Then he decided to lay off those workers.

The e-mail finishes with: "These folks wanted change; I gave it to them." [...]

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A little known temple in the sleepy hamlet of Muthavazhy in Aalapuzha district of Kerala has shot into limelight following speculation that its dome may contain iridium, a metal costlier than gold.

The 'power' of the dome became an object of curiosity and discussion as people found that the cells of their torchlights 'burnt out' and batteries of mobile phones 'damaged' when kept close to it. [...]

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A little-known temple in Kerala's Alappuzha district has suddenly more visitors than ever before. And not all of them are interested in offering prayers to the deity of Karthikeya: some are even offering crores of rupees to buy its dome.

The new-found interest is because of rumours about the presence of radioactive iridium on the dome of the Karthikeya temple in Pandanad village. [...]

ALAPPUZHA: A team of the State Archaeology Department conducted inspections at the Pandanadu Muthavazhi Subrahmanya Swami temple near Chengannur here on Saturday, following claims and reports that the dome of the temple contained iridium, a precious metal several times costlier than gold. [...]

An e-mail is being widely circulated in which it is claimed that a well-known food chain sent letters out to schools warning about tomato sauce which could have been deliberately contaminated with the blood of an HIV+ person.

This e-mail has been brought to the attention of the South African Police Service and a thorough enquiry has revealed it to be a hoax which, unfortunately, is becoming an urban legend. Similar hoaxes have been discovered on web sites in other countries. [...]

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

In India, scorpions are naturally fond of secreting themselves in holes, and have a nasty habit of getting into Wellington boots. One day an officer was putting on his boot. He felt something in it, and thinking it was a scorpion, he pulled it on instantly and stamped violently on the floor, thus killing the scorpion. He narrated this at mess. A few days afterwards another officer was pulling on his boot, when he, too, felt something in the boot. Recollecting the scorpion story, he thought he could not do better than stamp his foot down also in the boot. He did so, but the experiment did not succeed, as there was no scorpion this time, but a regimental spur with the rowel upwards.

I was lately told a wonderful story by a raw Lancashire man. It appears that once upon a time there lived a man whose appetite was enormous: he was always eating and yet could never get fat, he was the thinnest and most miserable of creatures to look at. He always declared that he had something alive in his stomach; and a kind friend learned in doctoring confirmed his opinion, and prescribed a most ingenious plan to dislodge the enemy, a big Triton, who had taken up his quarters in the man's stomach. He was ordered to eat nothing but salt food and to drink no water; and when he had continued this treatment as long as he could bear it, he was to go and lie down near a weir of the river, where the water was running over, "with his mouth open." The man did as he was told, and open-mouthed and expectant placed himself by the side of the weir. The lizard inside, tormented by the salt food, and parched for want of water, heard the sound of the running stream, and came scampering up the man's throat, and jumping out of his mouth ran down to the water to drink. The sudden appearance of the brute so terrified the weakened patient that he fainted away, still with his mouth open. In the meantime the lizard had drunk his full and was coming back to return down the man's throat into his stomach: he had nearly succeeded in so doing when the patient awoke, and seizing his enemy by the tail killed him on the spot. I consider this story to be one of the finest strings of impossibilities ever recorded.

It was now time to be off as we heard the wheels of the dog-cart rattle over the old bridge, on the railings of which were cut marks showing the length of a huge trout that had once been caught underneath it, and we soon arrived at Fordingbridge, where the landlady had a capital dinner for us all ready.

Among the dishes was some ham and eggs. I rang the bell. "Where did that ham come from, Mrs. Bill ?" said I.

"From Fordingbridge, sir," said the landlady.

"Are you quite sure? Have you had any Irishmen in the village lately?"

"No, sir."

"Then it's all right, thank you," said I.

"What's the matter with the ham ?" said Pennell.

"Oh, nothing," said I; "only I heard a story just before I left London, which makes me rather shy of bacon just now."

"What's the joke?— let's hear the story."

"Well, then, a lady told me that four or five Irishmen came a week or two since to Knaresborough in Yorkshire, where she lived, and set up stalls opposite the butchers' shops. These men brought bacon, which they sold in large quantities at 2 1/2d. a pound. The butchers were furious, and at last they said, 'We must hit upon some plan to get rid of these fellows; they are ruining our trade, for the people will not buy our meat at 7d. a pound when they can get bacon for 2 1/2d.' As the butchers were talking this matter over in front of their stalls in the market, an old woman came toddling up to know what the beef was a pound. 'Sevenpence, mum; we can't sell our beef at the same price as these Irishmen sell the bacon, because — don't you know all about it missus? Why all bacon is made from pigs as comes from 'Meriker; and don't you know, missus, what they feeds them on in 'Meriker ?' 'No,' said the old woman, 'how should I know ?' 'Why they feeds them on dead soldiers, as has been killed in the war; they picks up the bodies after the battles, and throws 'em into the pig-sties for the pigs — and that's what makes 'em so fat and so cheap.' 'Lord! good gracious, butcher! you don't say so? How shocking! those 'orrid Irishmen!' So off goes the old lady, with her bit of beef on a skewer, all round the market, telling everybody she met, young and old, that the Irishmen's bacon was 'fed on dead 'Merican soldiers.' The news spread like wildfire; a thrifty housekeeper was seen to throw a ham she had just bought for 5s. into the road, and nobody would pick it up; even a beggar passed it with contempt, and the inhabitants cleared their cupboards and larders of every morsel of the newly-purchased bacon. The next Saturday, the bacon men came as usual to the market, and there was not a man, woman, or child near their stalls: they brought the bacon down to three-halfpence a pound — but still no customers; and not even genuine, home-fed bacon could be sold by the regular shops. The Irishmen were furious at the butchers, and the butchers laughed at the Irishmen; anyhow, the bacon merchants immediately shut up shop, sheered off, and have never been heard of since in Knaresborough. I thought that possibly these same Irishmen might have come on to Fordingbridge, and therefore was anxious to know whether Mrs. Bill's bacon was fattened with English barleymeal or dead 'Merican soldiers."

Ladies have, I believe, as a rule, a better chance than gentlemen of taming wild animals, as the following will prove. My excellent and kind-hearted friend, the late lamented Lady Hornby, told me that she once expressed a wish, when residing at Constantinople, to try if she could tame a wild Turkish street dog, and asked some gentlemen to catch her one. They accordingly went out in pursuit, and in due course of time brought home their capture alive, half dead with fear, and as savage as possible.

The poor hunted thing immediately ran for protection to Lady Hornby, and would not quit her side. She tied it up in the stable, and by taking to it and feeding it herself, managed to make it quite tame. One day she was showing her pet to a gentleman who knows a good deal about animals.

When he saw it he said, "Why, Lady Hornby, what have you got here?"

"Oh, it's my tame street dog," was the answer.

"It's no street dog at all," said —; "it's a common brute of a wild jackal."

"Anyhow," said the lady, "dog or jackal, I have tamed him now, and don't mean to part with him," — a plain proof to all that female influence can tame the most ferocious of animals.

We called it the "snake in the dewberry patch" story. I was working at a weekly newspaper, The Brewton Standard, in the summer of 1981. [...]

Man drives by car in wooded area and sees children therein. Much later he returns and notes children still in car. Asks if they are alone and they tell him Mama's gone dewberry picking. He calls out for her and hearing no response, begins to investigate. Off by some dewberry vines, in a ditch, he finds the woman dead, the victim of a venomous bite. Woman has death grip on rattlesnake, which she has also killed.

End of story.

As we investigated the horrible tale, which everyone told us really happened, we found many variations with locales and persons changing. [...]

The theory is almost too perfect to be true. Barack Obama, the son of politically progressive parents, was born Aug. 4, 1961—almost nine months to the day after John F. Kennedy was elected to the White House. Is it possible Obama was conceived on that historic night?

And if so, could history repeat itself? In the hours and days since Obama's victory, many of his exhilarated supporters have been, shall we say, in the mood for love. [...]

TORONTO - Police in southern Ontario are warning parents to check their kids' Halloween candy after cold medication was discovered in sealed boxes of Halloween candy.

On Wednesday, a Grade 5 student in Pickering, Ont., opened a box of Smarties collected while trick-or-treating Oct. 31 and found a DayQuil cold medication tablet among the candy, Durham Regional police said.

Since then four more cases have been confirmed, all involving the cold and flu medication in boxes of Smarties. [...]

MEDFORD-Township police yesterday issued a warning to Medford parents to closely inspect all candy collected by their children on Halloween.

On Wednesday, Police Chief Anthony J. Canale issued a press release saying his department has received two complaints from residents who found candy in their children's trick or treat baskets that had evidence of tampering.

He said the suspicious candy were snack packs of Peanut M & M's, where the back had been cut open, candy removed and replaced with pellets of what looked like animal food. The packages were then taped closed. [...]

[...] The new DVD "Mormon Myth-ellaneous: Amazing True Mormon Stories -- And Some That Should Be" (Covenant Communications, Inc., $16.95) examines urban legends with a Mormon twist, including the ideas that "Star Wars" character Yoda was based on an LDS prophet, and that Elvis read the Book of Mormon. [...]

Saturday, November 1, 2008

George Hamilton & William Stadiem, Don't Mind If I Do (NY: Touchstone, 2008 ), p. 121.

There was one kind hostess at a place called the Knife and Fork, to whom I turned for aid and comfort when we were starving on Thanksgiving. "There's a turkey in the freezer," she said sweetly. "It's yours."

I went back into the freezer and picked up a huge thirty-five pound bird and hid it under my raincoat. But on my way out, who should come in but the owner, stationing himself between me and the door and chatting with the cashier. I didn't dare walk past him. I looked like a pregnant man with this bulge under my raincoat. Hollywood was full of weirdos, but I was pushing it here. So I ordered a cup of coffee at the counter and bided my time. And bided and bided... The owner didn't move, and the turkey began defrosting. Soon a puddle was forming at my feet. This pregnant man looked like he was either peeing or breaking water. Then, even worse, the long turkey neck defrosted and fell off into my lap, between my legs. When the owner finally walked away, I hightailed it out the door, leaving a huge flood at the counter behind me. Talk about giving thanks. We cooked that bird and lived on it for weeks.

Cascade general-season elk hunters remain so mystified as to why they never reach the 5 Percent Club that a stubborn few continue to look skyward for an answer to all that fails them. [...]

It can't be that elk hunters outnumber elk in Jackson County. Or that walking forest roads expecting to find a big bull is as likely as trolling Match.com expecting a quick date with Jessica Simpson.

It's gotta be those damn Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists raining rock salt -- or bags of flour or fire crackers -- from the sky just before Opening Day to break up the Roosevelt elk herds, all intended to minimize hunter success. [...]

KINGSTON, Jamaica, November 12, 2008 - Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding has appealed for calm in the wake of reports of the abduction of children from schools across the island and has sought to reassure the country that the security forces have stepped up their vigilance.

He said he was assured at an emergency meeting with the Ministers of Education and National Security, the High command of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) and other stakeholders that ongoing investigations so far show that "there is a significant gap between the reality and the perception". [...]

FACT OR FICTION, rumour or reality? Reports of abductions of children and young women are reaching epidemic proportions. [...]

A certain email now in circulation claims that a family, while enjoying the simple pleasure of dining out on hamburgers, were set upon by young men who took away two young girls and raped them. [...]

FINGERS ARE POINTED at different sources. Taxi-men, in particular, are getting a bad rap (not that some of them haven't earned it), as it is widely held that some, at least, are involved in the evil. [...]

There's also the allegation that the attack on youngsters has links to gang initiation rites. No evidence has been adduced that this is true. [...]

Thursday, October 23, 2008

SANA'A, Oct. 22 - Rumors of strong earthquakes up to 7 degrees on the Richter scale in the Gulf of Aden, Marib, Dhamar and Taiz governorates last Sunday have caused panic among people living in those areas and disturbed their daily lives. [...]

"The story started over two months ago when an article was published in the national newspaper Al-Thawra, in which a center I have never heard of for astronomy, minerals and oil predicted strong earthquakes of 7 Richter. The next day we published an article in the newspaper denying any of that news," said Jamal Sholan, director of the National Seismology Observatory Center (NSOC) based in Dhamar.

The news was republished in different Yemeni media on several occasions, each time with a new location suggested for the so-called devastating earthquake. [...]

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

[...] "Recently I walked to my corner store and asked the delightful middle-aged Chinese lady serving there for a light bulb," writes Myles Paulsen, of Redfern. "I heard her say: 'What?' I repeated my request and again she said 'What?', so I did what I normally do in these circumstances and went into an elaborate routine in which I mimed unscrewing an invisible dead bulb from a ceiling, screwing in a live one, and then flicking an invisible switch, upon which my eyes widen in happiness as the room suddenly fills with light. The lady looked at me as if I'd lost my mind and then she repeated: 'Watt! How many watt?' "

CHICAGO (CBS) - Two more children have told police they were approached by a sinister man dressed as a clown, after several other such incidents were reported. [...]

While police are taking the incidents seriously, a police source close to the investigation told CBS 2's Mike Parker that past scares involving men dressed as clowns have cast some doubt on some the current claims.

A police source said at this point, the latest reports are being investigated accordingly and cannot be dismissed. But another source close to the investigation said the two reports from the city's West Side are now believed to be bogus. [...]

[...] I decided to ask Barbra [sic] about a show she rarely discusses, Carrie. A lot of people have forgotten that she played the mother in the RSC production in London. She finally verified a story I always thought was a Broadway urban legend. During pre-production, the director met with the producer, who felt that the scariness in the movie was from the fact that this kind of horror could take place in any high school in America, so the producer suggested that the show have the look of Grease. The director readily agreed and came back weeks later with the set and costume drawings. The producer looked at it all and asked, "Why all the columns? Why is everything white?" and the director said, "I took your advice. It all looks like Greece!" Seriously! [...]

Monday, October 13, 2008

[...] Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs.

But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government. [...]

Albeit edited thus with additional data from the supposed original form, the message was the same - sun will rise continuously for 36 hours or 1.5 days. And to give further credence to the text, supposed source were CNN and BBC News. [...]